Lanzhou beef
noodles are very well known throughout China, and you can them at one of the
Lanzhou beef noodle restaurants found in virtually every city throughout the
country. Such restaurants have also been opened in Western countries, including
the US, Canada and France, but you never know what you’ll get at one of those;
as the saying goes, “Each place nurtures its own inhabitants”. Actually, even
within China these Lanzhou beef noodle restaurants vary greatly in quality and
style, so the only way to be sure is to try some.

Their full name
being “Lanzhou plain broth beef noodles”, they are considered one of the “Ten
Great Noodles of China”, and are a halal food native to Lanzhou City, Gansu
Province. They’re also an indispensible breakfast food in Lanzhou, for very
simple reasons: they’re straightforward, inexpensive, filling, and they taste
good. Lanzhou just wouldn’t be Lanzhou without them.

From looking at a
map we can see how the culture of eating noodles spread. In the early Middle
Ages, the Arabs conquered Sicily, after which they introduced Islamic noodles, and
these eventually evolved into Italian noodles. From Rome noodles then spread to
Central Asia, Turkey, Iran and Xinjiang, and along the Hexi Corridor into
mainland China, including Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong, then eventually
to Korea and Japan. Crossing the Pacific no noodles could be found, until much
later when they were adopted directly from Europe.

5000 years ago,
the people of Etruria brought wheat seeds to the Uyghur region of China. In
1991 archaeologists found, in a 2000-year-old tomb in Xinjiang, a container
filled with some kind of small and long-shaped food, which was later confirmed
to be the most ancient noodles ever discovered. The owner of the tomb was from
a European family who had relocated to Xinjiang, and they may just have been
the first people in that region to make noodles. By Song dynasty China, the
capital Kaifeng was known as “noodle heaven”. And today the French still call
noodles “living noodles”.

1500年之后，古老中国“丝绸之路”的西域商队在路上留下一串串脚印，同时也是一条面条之路。兰州这条路上独创了自己的饮食，兰州拉面。

1500 years after
this family’s immigration to Xinjiang, the merchants from the western region of
China left their many footprints along the “Silk Road”. Of course it was also a
“Noodle Road”; at the major hub city of Lanzhou, the famous Lanzhou beef
noodles were born.

A phrase
describing Lanzhou beef noodles that gained popularity on the internet is “a
clear broth, tender meat, and noodles as thin as threads”. There’s also the
traditional list of ingredients, clear (broth), white (radish), red (hot pepper
oil), green (coriander and leek) and yellow (the noodles). But in the past, the
majority of people were quite poor, thus it was only natural to water down the
meat broth, so that it was “clearer” than originally. Today many restaurants
serve high-quality Lanzhou beef noodles, featuring meaty broths full of
flavour. Some also serve more health-conscious noodles and broth, with a bowl
of “winterworm and summerherb” noodles selling for several hundred yuan,
holding the record for the most expensive Lanzhou noodles.

In fact, every
Lanzhou noodle house has its unique taste and claim to fame, be it their broth,
their meat, the chewiness of their noodles, or their side dishes. Likewise,
each customer has his or own preferences, and will choose whichever restaurant
best suits their taste. Young noodle chefs will learn alongside their masters,
who not only pass on their recipes and techniques to the students, but more
importantly they pass on their spirit, which is the heart of Lanzhou noodles.

In 1915, a Hui man
named Ma Baozi, for reasons of necessity, started making a kind of noodles at
home, then he would carry a few barrels of it on a bamboo carrying stick down
to the Lanzhou south gate crossroads market for sale. This started as a way to
simplify the noodle-making process, as he only had to take the cold noodles and
pour hot soup on them, then they could be sold and eaten. Later, Ma Baozi ended
up stretching his own noodles and cooking them right on the spot, and serving
them in bowls of broth used to cook beef and lamb liver, giving them an extra
kick of flavour. Passersby would catch the pleasant smell of the noodles, then
grab a bowl and squat down to eat them, leaving the bowl on the ground as they
left. That was how the Lanzhou beef noodles we see today came to be, just over
one century ago.

There’s a
restaurant called A Taste of Beef Noodles, which most likely gets its name from
the popular documentary A Taste of China, and the restaurant has been very well
received by Lanzhou locals. It has very interesting décor representative of
Lanzhou, and is also very cozy. On the walls are folk paintings, antiques and
sticky notes with messages on them.

Then there’s an
old noodle house called Ma Zilu Noodles, hidden on Dazhong Alley within the
busy market sector, and it takes forever to find it after all the twists and
turns, so needless to say parking is a nightmare. This is the original shop of
a well-known chain, so it’s extremely popular, a constant stream of people
coming and going. Before paying you receive an old-fashioned ticket showing your
total, which is calculated using an abacus, for a rather historical kind of
feeling. Personally I find the décor here a bit more modern than it could be,
and maybe it would be better if the restaurant itself were more
antique-feeling, not that it’s up to me, but that made it differ a bit from my
expectations. Ma Zilu Noodles choose only the best ingredients, use the most
meticulous methods, and strive to attain the best possible taste.

金强拉面原是一家汉族牛肉面馆，由于味道好，越做越大，最后在黄河北岸开了一家肯德基式的快餐店。

Next is Jin Qiang
Noodles, established by the Han Chinese, as opposed to Hui like most of the
other restaurants. Their noodles proved popular, and the business quickly
expanded, until eventually they opened a fast food-style shop on the northern
bank of the Yellow River.

Then I went to Sha
Family Noodles in Sauce, which is an extended and simplified version of serving
noodles, similar to how Ma Baozi would pour hot broth on cold noodles and serve
them right away, only with sauce instead of broth. Lanzhou locals call these
“combo noodles”, which is a play-on-words sounding like “dummy noodles”.

Pagoda Mountain
Slope Noodle House is located at the foot of White Pagoda Mountain, on the bank
of the Yellow River, right next to a mosque. Leading from its entrance is a
path leading to the white pagoda on the mountain. The restaurant’s design is
quite nice, and the second floor is quiet, so in the summer you can eat your
noodles on the balcony as you look out over the Yellow River and the mountain
with its white pagoda. This restaurant is one of the few noodle houses in
Lanzhou where the staff call the orders out; you can hear them shouting things
like “Put down a bowl of thin ones, lots of radish, lots of leek, extra spicy!”
and “Make the bowl with ‘big’ noodles!” (which in Lanzhou dialect means with
‘lots of’ noodles).

At the restaurant
I talked to a noodle chef named Ma Yun, who’s 46; his parents used to make
noodles at a cafeteria, until after the Reform and Opening-Up, when they
started selling their own noodles on the street. Ma Yun used to have his own
beef noodle house, which he ran for 26 years. Then a year and a half ago his cousin
opened the Pagoda Mountain Slope Noodle House, so he closed his own shop and
came here to help out. He mostly takes care of cooking the noodles and cutting
the meat, which are both very important, because if the broth isn’t right or
the meat isn’t tasty then it’s his responsibility. The importance of his job is
particularly significant when making “three meat broth”, which namely includes
lamb liver, a whole chicken, and beef. When boiling the three types of meat you
have to take the liver out right as it’s ready and turns solid, otherwise the
flavours of the liver and chicken will steep into the beef, ruining the entire
batch. After taking out the liver and chicken, then you keep cooking the beef,
until eventually you have both broth and beef that are absolutely delectable.
At the end of the day they’ll save a pot of the broth, which they’ll add to the
batch the following day; this is called the “old broth”. Mr. Ma’s old broth is
over 20 years old now. It’s kind of like a “primer” in Chinese medicine, it
helps bring out the flavour of the soup. When boiling the soup Mr. Ma will add
some salt, which adds to the flavour of the meat. But different from the usual
method of adding salt, he doesn’t put it in until after the meat is cooked, as
adding it while it’s cooking will cause the meat to contract, making it tough.
There’s also a saying, “Using hot broth to cook meat will make the meat taste
good, using cold broth to cook meat will make the broth taste good.” For all
the specific details, he has only his experience to rely on, but the old broth
is definitely a key element.

塔山半坡店里的一口大铜锅就300斤重，内径1.1米，一次能煮400斤的牛肉。

At the Pagoda
Mountain Slope Restaurant there’s a huge copper pot that has an inner diameter
of 1.1 m, weighs over 300 pounds,
and can cook over 400 pounds of beef at a time.

马师傅已经带过三个徒弟，一般一个徒弟需要七八年的学习就可以出师了，现在马师傅带的这个小徒弟十八岁，名字叫马小帅，人挺帅的。

Mr. Ma has already
taught three disciples. Typically a disciple will have to learn for seven or
eight years before they can work on their own. His current one is 18, his
name’s “Handsome” Ma, and he is quite handsome.

How the meat is
cut is also very important, so Mr. Ma cuts all the meat himself. Each section
of meat must be cut differently, as do raw and cooked meat. The meat must be
tasty, and look good, with a balance between lean meat and fat. It must also be
cut against the grain, otherwise it won’t look good, and it will get stuck in
the customers’ teeth.

一袋面粉等标准是50斤，可以做出180碗拉面。他们店里每天能卖出1800碗拉面，400至600斤的牛肉。

A standard bag of
flour is 50 pounds, which can make 180 bowls of noodles. Every day their shop
sells 1800 bowls of noodles, including 400 to 600 pounds of beef.

The next noodle
house I visited was Yi’eryi Noodles, a brand-new restaurant in the Anning
District on the north bank of the river. This is also the location of the
Lanzhou Noodle School. The restaurant’s manager Tian Weihai has 15 locations
throughout China; he’s the Vice-Director of the Lanzhou City Noodle Industry
Federation, and his restaurant is the first to take part in the industry
configuration of the “one strip, one road” region. Yi’eryi restaurants have also been opened in other
countries like Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia and Iran.

跟着田总我们来到他这家新开的拉面馆。拉面师傅苏国强准备的是五种彩色拉面，这让我们感到很是新奇。

Mr. Tian took us
to this newly opened restaurant. The noodle chef, named Su Guoqiang, was making
multicoloured noodles, which was something we had never seen before.

Mr. Su says that
these colourful noodles were an idea that he got from his children while they
were playing with plasticine. They had rolled up several colours of plasticine,
then when they put them together it was like a rainbow. This inspired Mr. Su to
try it with real noodles.

At first he had
trouble finding the right ingredients to use; he started with sweet potato
flour, because noodles made from it would be soft, making it easier to add
other ingredients. But sweet potato flour also has a high sugar content, and
after cooking the noodles he also found there were lumps in them, so then he
tried spreading the cooked sweet potatoes on a table, and took the lumps out
one by one, then mixed the sweet potato and flour together, followed by eggs.
However, the noodles came out too soft, and couldn’t be formed into proper
shapes.

Next he tried
pressing the juices out of green spinach, orange carrots, red tomatoes, purple
cabbage and yellow gourds, and mixing them with the flour; soon enough, his
inspiration grew. After stretching and pounding a few batches, he could make
noodles of all five colours, and in nine different thicknesses, from “hair
thin” to “pillar thick”. Mr. Su dubbed these “flying cloud noodles”.

The challenge with
these noodles is that a clearer broth has to be used, so as not to overpower
the colours of the noodles, achieving a balance of colour, taste and aroma. The
final product is a tasty bowl of noodles with a light broth that have attracted
the eyes and taste buds of many, many customers.

Virtually any
Lanzhou local can tell you that to make Lanzhou beef noodles you have to “cook
them three times, steep them in lye-water three times, and knead them 9981
times”. The purpose of the lye-water, according to Mr. Su, is to keep the
noodles from breaking apart in the water, and retaining their chewiness.

来拉面馆当学徒首先要学会拿石头来熬灰水。

When a student
starts learning how to make noodles, the first thing he learns his how to boil
stones to make lye-water.

”2012年的时候媒体曝兰州拉面使用蓬灰做调味剂，说蓬灰有致癌作用，一时间众说纷纭。

In 2012 the media
claimed that the lye-water made from “penghui” (bitter fleabane) used in making
Lanzhou noodles was to alter the flavour, and that it could cause cancer.

Mr. Su says in
response that penghui is a kind of plant which grows in the arid northwestern
region of China, and is also known as pengpengcao, choupenghao and jianpeng. It
has a rather high alkaline content. Every October, residents from the villages
surrounding Lanzhou will go and collect this herb, to be made into penghui. The
reason why they pick it in the autumn is to that it hasn’t completely dried out
yet, which won’t do, as it has to have some water in it. To cook it they dig a
hole in the ground and throw the herbs in, with the small ones on the bottom
and large ones on the top. Then they cook the herbs, so that the juice from
inside steeps out, and when the herbs have burned to ashes, they bury them in
the soil. Three weeks later they reopen the hole, at which point the ashes will
have crystallized. They break the crystals into pea-sized pieces, then boil
them in water.

其实蓬草燃烧后产生的灰烬，主要成分是碳酸盐，其次是氯化钾、含硫化合物、磷酸盐等。相比现在的化学制剂应该是天然的成分，只是现在用的很少了。

After the herbs
have turned to ash, their main component is carbonate, followed by potassium
chloride, sulfur compounds, and phosphates. Compared to most chemical agents
used today these components are all quite natural, but nowadays this method isn’t
used that much anymore.

The first pot of
water in which the penghui is boiled will have an alkaline content which is too
high, the second pot is just right, while the third will be quite mild. Usually
these three are mixed together for the perfect ratio. This is the most traditional
method used in Lanzhou. By mixing this water with the flour, it will improve
the consistency of the dough, as well as its level of gluten and thus
elasticity, bringing out the flavor.

Mr. Su says that
stretching the noodles takes a lot of strength, similar to hooking your hands
together and pulling them in opposite direction. When learning it you have to
have the right amount of patience; if you’re in too much of a hurry the noodles
won’t be stretchy enough and may break, and if you take your time the customer
will grow impatient, and since noodles are still considered a type of “fast
food”, that just won’t do.

When kneading the
dough, it’s important to use strength, while still being gentle. The dough is
soft, while the kneading board is hard. When kneading the dough, your hands and
the dough communicate with each other. The strength comes from the palms of
your hand, with the weight of your body pushing down. The palms knead the
dough, and the sides of the hands open the dough, every movement bearing a remarkable
resemblance to taiji. The head noodle chef is my uncle, he has practiced taiji
for a long time, and told me some of the principles in taiji involving the
balance of strength and gentleness. Afterwards my dough kneading skills
suddenly improved, I had much more strength. Stretching the noodles is all
about conditioning the dough, and conditioning is all about kneading,
everything is directly related.

I have one student
who is particularly short on patience, so I just had him knead for a long time,
then eventually he got tired, and he eventually became much less impetuous. The
outside world can’t be allowed affect his inner feelings; he has to understand
that before he can adjust his attitude.

One time I was on
a trip in Yunnan and I met a blind man. He asked me where I was from, and I
said Lanzhou. He then casually asked me, “Can you make Lanzhou noodles” I said,
“Yes, if you want some I’ll make you some tonight.” But then he asked if I had
time to teach him how to make them. This took me aback; he was blind, if I
taught him would he be able to learn?

我先教他练了一个星期手劲，相当于让他不用眼睛用手去感受。

I first had him
practice hand strength for a week, so that he could get a feel of the dough
without using his eyes.

我让他手放面上，他说：“什么意思”我说：“你感受下这放的是水，这放的灰，这放的是油”，他学半个月就会了，很有灵性。

I had him put his
hand on the dough, and he asked what I would have him do. I had him feel
different types of dough: “This one is made with water, this one with
lye-water, this one with oil.” After two weeks he could do it himself, he was
very talented.

我家里放着一对钢球，一副球是一公斤，每天玩，就是要练手的灵活度，拉面就是要手指灵活，手指不灵活怎么搓、拉面、抻面。

At home I have a
set of iron balls, the two combined are 1
kg in weight. I practice with them every day, to keep my hands
nimble, which is very important for making noodles. If my hands aren’t nimble,
how am I supposed to knead the dough and stretch the noodles?

I’ve also met
someone who had too much patience; he was from Jiuquan, and I’ll always
remember his name: “Happy” Xu. No matter what you said to him in anger, he’d
always be smiling. Just how slow was he? When the restaurant was full, it didn’t
make a difference to him, he’d just keep on kneading, fast or slow, it was all
the same to him. The customers would lose patience way before he did.

学拉面不在年龄，60多的老头子来了，我都教过。关键在于技巧，和手的灵活度。

There’s no age
limit for learning how to make noodles; I’ve taught people in their sixties.
The key elements are technique and hand dexterity.

Mr. Su says, “Dough
is smart; from wheat until becoming flour, then when water is added it becomes
dough, and all things made from it, noodles, buns, and so on, are all smart.
Dough is a gift from the heavens, so when making it we have to treat it well.”

没有美食的城市如同没有同房的夫妻，缺少了一种的滋味。这就是一座城和一碗面的关系。

A city without
cuisine is like a married couple without a house to live in, there’s just
something missing. This city could never be without its noodles.